Will a vendor's revenue concerns trump the planned installation of three healthy vending machines at PSU?

It’s a daunting task to reform the current food system into one that is more sustainable and just. Where do you begin? Unnecessary agribusiness subsidies, or protecting family farmers, or combating the marketing of over-processed, high-calorie, sugary snack foods?

For Portland State graduate student Amanda Peden, the answer was the school’s ubiquitous snack vending machines. “[We] saw a public health issue right under our noses,” Peden writes in an email. For a school project, Peden collaborated with two Masters of Public Health colleagues to develop a communications plan to bring healthier snacks to Portland State’s vending machines. “Everyone in the PSU community needs access to healthy food. The healthy vending effort is one step in that direction.”

This past summer, Peden saw her class project morph into a “full-blown effort.” An advisory group was formed to identify machines that would increase choices and offer healthier snacks to students. (Full disclosure: I was a member of this group.) The 2bU machines identified for installation provide gluten-free, vegan, and other snacks of smaller portion sizes.
The emphasis on portion size was a priority. “It’s reasonable to snack,” dietitian Nancy Becker writes in an email, “However, portion sizes must be in line with our energy needs.” As a registered dietitian for Oregon Public Health Institute, Becker helped set standards for healthy vending machines for Portland Parks & Recreation. The goal is to extend these standards to the Portland State campus with the next vending machine contract, and the 2bUs will introduce PSU students to the type of products that will meet the new healthy vending standard.

Gwyn Ashcom, health educator for the PSU Center for Student Health and Counseling.

The 2bU machines are part of PSU’s Healthy Campus Initiative. Gwyn Ashcom is a health educator for the school’s Center for Student Health and Counseling and has taken a leading role in bringing these machines to campus. “From a health promotion perspective, we know we can create behavior change if we improve the environment to make healthy choices easier,” Ashcom writes in an email. “Because they are a quick stop for people, it seemed like [vending machines] were a reasonable place to start when it comes to nutrition-based incentives. By developing nutritional standards for our vending machines on campus, PSU would be the first university in Oregon to adopt a policy like this.”

Three new 2bU machines were set to be installed on the PSU campus in strategic locations during winter break. But, as

spring break approaches, only one 2bU machine has been installed, in the school’s Student Rec Center. An unexpected roadblock has prevented the installation of the other two machines. As a state-operated facility, PSU’s vending machines are operated by the Oregon Commission for the Blind, and, according to Ashcom, PSU’s vendor is nervous that her revenues will be impacted as the 2bU machines cost more to run and her vendor cut would be smaller. (NN asked the Oregon Commission for the Blind for comment but did not receive a response before publication.)

“But we are adding machines, so I don’t understand what the problem is,” Ashcom says. “The machine in the Rec Center is doing really well and a lot of things are sold out. We’re hoping that when we show her those numbers at the end of this month, she will be receptive to eventually change out the products in her existing vending machines.”

With the installation of the other two 2bU machines currently on hold, the question needs to be asked once again: Is it possible to reform our profit-driven, industrial and unhealthy food system? In this instance, a graduate student recognized an opportunity for healthy change, which inspired a group to make this idea a reality. Partnerships are formed with the university, agreements are made, and plans are confirmed for the installation of healthy vending machines. And then installation is blocked due to revenue concerns.

Hopefully, these roadblocks can be resolved before a cynical conclusion, that it’s pointless to try to reform the current food system, is reached.

Kyle Curtis received his MPA in sustainable food policy from Portland State University's Hatfield School of Government in 2010. Kyle has helped manage the Montavilla Farmers Market in southeast Portland, served on the steering committee of the Multnomah Food Initiative, and was recently appointed to the Portland-Multnomah Food Policy council. more...

What I bring away from this article is that food activists are business people who use political pressure to create a market for their less profitable products. What conventional business people call "Marketing", these business people call "Reform".

Kyle Curtis

March 10th, 2012

@Mark: In our society, it is completely sacrosanct to consider the right of the business owner- they should be able to sell whatever they want, whenever they want. Rarely, however, are the rights of the consumer considered. And that is "actually" considered, as opposed to not really offering alternative products, and instead arguing that consumers "will only" buy the calorie-laden soda pop and cookies that are often stock conventional vending machines. (Which, it should be pointed out, could cause diabetes which then could cause... blindness.) Of course, the heavily-subsidized sugar drinks and corn-syrup infused snack items will be "more profitable" than healthier snacks--that is the nature of subsidies. But as the photo of the 2bU machine with gaping holes of sold-out products attest, there is a undeniably a demand by consumers for products that are not being met. And could not be met with one machine serving a school that is as large as a small city. An enterprising entrepreneur would step in and fill this niche, being overjoyed to provide machines with snack items that consistently sell out. Even if the vendor cut is smaller, it would be compensated by the volume of products that are sold. Of course, that would only occur in a situation that is not a monopoly, which is what is currently at with the vending machines at Portland State.

Jacob

March 13th, 2012

Other students who have been working to promote tap water and to discontinue the sale and use of bottled water at PSU have ran into similar roadblocks. The City of Portland has some of the best tap water in the nation, but vendor contracts and institutional profit trumps real action to support sustainability. Meanwhile, although PSU was once viewed as a leader in water sustainability, Portland State's "innovations" now fall to the wayside compared to what is taking place at other institutions.